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BASEBALL
Columbine, Dakota Ridge draw home dates for districts
The 5A Jeffco League champion Columbine Rebels (13-5) drew the fourth seed and will host a four-team district tournament May 12.
Columbine will play 29th-seeded Mountain Range (12-7) at 10 a.m. The second game, set for 12:30 p.m., pits 13th-seeded Ralston Valley (13-6) against 20th-seeded Grand Junction (13-6). The winners will play at 3 p.m. for the rights to advance to the eight-team, double-elimination portion of the 5A state tournament.

Hannah Ohman and Payton Pritekel played their way into the 5A state girls tennis championships the hard way.
Chatfield’s No. 4 doubles team, after placing third at the 5A Region 3 tournament on May 3 at Ken Caryl Ranch House, found themselves in a playback match with Mountain Vista’s Alyssa Heiland and Jordan Wade. Then they found themselves in a second-set tiebreak. They won them both.

GREENWOOD VILLAGE — Getting to state has been the hard part for the Littleton Lady Lions. But they won’t have to worry about that this year.
Littleton’s No. 3 singles player Katie Pearson and three doubles teams reached the 5A state tournament after placing second at the Region 1 championship May 3-4 at Cherry Creek High School.
“We’ve been in a drought,” Littleton head coach Kevin Brooks said. “We haven’t been to state in a while, so now to qualify three teams is fantastic.

DENVER — Columbine took second place in the 5A Region 5 girls tennis tournament at City Park.
Columbine advanced four to the state tournament this weekend — its No. 3 singles player and its No. 1, 2 and 4 doubles teams. The 5A state tournament runs May 10-12 at the Gates Tennis Center in Denver. The Lady Rebels placed fourth last year at regionals and qualifying only one for the state tournament.

AURORA — It would’ve been easy for the Littleton Lions to call it quits after Cherokee Trail opened their boys lacrosse state playoff game with six straight goals. It would’ve been just as easy to pack it in at halftime down by that same six-goal deficit with few signs of a comeback on the horizon.
But that’s not what Littleton is all about, and the Lions proved that on May 4 at Legacy Stadium.

Scoring goals in the first half is a tone-setter for the Columbine Lady Rebels, but they haven’t always come easily. There’s a goal here and there, but not at the frequency they would like with the 5A state playoffs on the horizon. That wasn’t a problem on May 3 against Mullen.
Ember Albertson and Ashley Morris scored in the first six minutes as host Columbine tripped the Lady Mustangs 3-0 in the regular-season finally for both teams.
Getting off to an early start was imperative, Albertson said.

A year ago, Columbine made an improbable run to be one of the final five teams left in 5A baseball before losing in the state tournament. This year, the run started much earlier and it came with 5A Jeffco League supremacy to boot.
Austin Anderson had three hits, Jaxon Mohr scored twice and Columbine scored four first-inning runs and never trailed in fending off host Chatfield 8-6 on May 5. The win sewed up a conference championship for the Rebels.

Following is a list of current qualifiers, as listed by MaxPreps, for the state track and field championships, scheduled for May 17-19 at Jefferson County Stadium in Lakewood. Only the top 18 qualifiers by the deadline of May 12 will qualify for state in their respective classification and category.

BASEBALL
Four early runs more than enough for Dakota Ridge
Dakota Ridge scored four early runs and made it hold up in a 4-2 victory over visiting Arvada West on April 28.
The win was the Eagles’ fourth in a row and seventh in eight games.
Dakota Ridge (13-3 overall, 5-1 5A Jeffco League) maintained a half-game lead over rivals Columbine and Chatfield entering its April 30th game at Lakewood. Results from that game weren’t available at press time.

The Chatfield Chargers scored a 6-3 victory over the Arvada West Wildcats at home on April 26. The win was an even sweeter victory for Chatfield because just two days before Arvada West defeated Chargers’ rival Columbine 6-5.
“In this league if you don’t respect every team you’re gonna get beat,” Chatfield Senior head coach Mike Yansak said. “So we had respect for (Arvada West) coming in. But when they knocked off the only undefeated team in league it gave us a little more respect.”